Ryder System has selected John Williford as its new president of Global Supply Chain Solutions. Williford comes to this newly created position from Golden Gate Logistics, where he had been president and CEO. He will be responsible for global management, operations, sales, marketing, and the financial performance of Ryder's Supply Chain Solutions business segment.
Troy VanWormer has been appointed director, supply chain consulting at Fortna. He will lead Fortna's Organizational Excellence (OE) Practice, which provides clients with services and solutions for labor productivity tracking, engineered standards, training, and incentive programs. Before joining Fortna, VanWormer was a founder and managing partner of XCD Performance Consulting.
Albert Oses, a regional sales manager for Ozburn-Hessey Logistics, has been elected president of the Florida Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association. The association works to foster communications between federal agencies and the logistics and trade community in order to expand international trade and other business opportunities for Florida companies.
The Conveyor Equipment Manufacturers Association (CEMA) has elected Dan Fannin as its new president. Fannin is vice president of marketing for Emerson Power Transmission, located in Maysville, Ky.
Other newly elected CEMA officers include Todd Swinderman of Martin Engineering, who will serve as vice president; Bill Pugh of Ralphs-Pugh Co., who will serve as secretary; and George Huber III of Industrial Kinetics, who will serve as treasurer. New CEMA board members are Jerry Heathman of Chantland Pulley & Roller Co., Jay Lee of Baldor Dodge Reliance, Tom Melton of Martin Sprocket & Gear, and Bill Casey of SI Systems.
Seko has appointed Bryan Vining as its new vice president of strategic development. Vining will be responsible for developing new offices within Seko's global logistics network. He comes to Seko after serving as director of corporate business development at Kitty Hawk.
DSC Logistics, an integrated logistics and supply chain management company, has named David Copeland vice president, corporate controller. He comes to DSC from Equity Office Properties Trust, where he was responsible for the fixed assets, revenue accounting, and technical accounting areas.
The Transportation Sales & Marketing Association has elected new officers. Candi Cybator of Pitt Ohio Express has been named chairman of the association. Cecil "Chip" Overbey of Old Dominion Freight Lines is president, John Marsaglia of Maple Transportation is vice president, Mitch Anderson of Milan Express is treasurer, and Gregg Zody of BNSF Railway is the new conference chair.
Four other industry leaders were elected to three-year terms on the association's board of directors. They are Al Bucher of Lakeville Motor Express, Shawn Dearman of Myers Transportation Services, Bill Kimmel of Quik X Group, and Vince Rogers of Routes Transportation.
New officers have been chosen to lead the Warehousing Education and Research Council for the next year. Mark Cleveland of Allstate Insurance is the new president, Timothy Feemster of Grubb & Ellis is the vice president/president elect, Catherine Cooper of Ozburn- Hessey Logistics is secretary/treasurer, and Ken Miesemer of St. Onge Co. is immediate past president.
Datalogic Mobile Inc. has appointed Brad Wall as its new sales manager for North America. Wall has more than 20 years of experience in the automatic identification and data capture industry, the past eight with PSC/Datalogic. He has also worked for Stratix Corp. and Manhattan Associates.
Dave Williams has been promoted to vice president and will serve as part of the national Supply Chain Solutions group for Hitachi Consulting. Hitachi Consulting is the business and IT consulting arm of Hitachi Ltd. Williams first joined the company in 2000 as part of Hitachi Consulting's acquisition of Grant Thornton.
The International Foodservice Distributors Association has elected its new officers. The new chairman is John Martin, CEO of Martin Brothers Distributing Co. The group's new vice chairman is Malcolm Sullivan, CEO of Pate Dawson Co., and its treasurer is James Kite Jr., president of Ellenbee-Leggett Co.
CEVA Logistics has made three new appointments to its management team. Rick Fields has been promoted to director of technology. He had been senior information technology manager. Melissa Alwood has been promoted to director of quality assurance. She has been with the company for nine years, most recently as senior manager of quality assurance. And Todd Pye has rejoined CEVA as director of operations for the company's rail services group, a role he had held before taking a year off to pursue his Master of Business Administration degree.
Autonomous forklift maker Cyngn is deploying its DriveMod Tugger model at COATS Company, the largest full-line wheel service equipment manufacturer in North America, the companies said today.
By delivering the self-driving tuggers to COATS’ 150,000+ square foot manufacturing facility in La Vergne, Tennessee, Cyngn said it would enable COATS to enhance efficiency by automating the delivery of wheel service components from its production lines.
“Cyngn’s self-driving tugger was the perfect solution to support our strategy of advancing automation and incorporating scalable technology seamlessly into our operations,” Steve Bergmeyer, Continuous Improvement and Quality Manager at COATS, said in a release. “With its high load capacity, we can concentrate on increasing our ability to manage heavier components and bulk orders, driving greater efficiency, reducing costs, and accelerating delivery timelines.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it follows another deployment of DriveMod Tuggers with electric automaker Rivian earlier this year.
The “2024 Year in Review” report lists the various transportation delays, freight volume restrictions, and infrastructure repair costs of a long string of events. Those disruptions include labor strikes at Canadian ports and postal sites, the U.S. East and Gulf coast port strike; hurricanes Helene, Francine, and Milton; the Francis Scott key Bridge collapse in Baltimore Harbor; the CrowdStrike cyber attack; and Red Sea missile attacks on passing cargo ships.
“While 2024 was characterized by frequent and overlapping disruptions that exposed many supply chain vulnerabilities, it was also a year of resilience,” the Project44 report said. “From labor strikes and natural disasters to geopolitical tensions, each event served as a critical learning opportunity, underscoring the necessity for robust contingency planning, effective labor relations, and durable infrastructure. As supply chains continue to evolve, the lessons learned this past year highlight the increased importance of proactive measures and collaborative efforts. These strategies are essential to fostering stability and adaptability in a world where unpredictability is becoming the norm.”
In addition to tallying the supply chain impact of those events, the report also made four broad predictions for trends in 2025 that may affect logistics operations. In Project44’s analysis, they include:
More technology and automation will be introduced into supply chains, particularly ports. This will help make operations more efficient but also increase the risk of cybersecurity attacks and service interruptions due to glitches and bugs. This could also add tensions among the labor pool and unions, who do not want jobs to be replaced with automation.
The new administration in the United States introduces a lot of uncertainty, with talks of major tariffs for numerous countries as well as talks of US freight getting preferential treatment through the Panama Canal. If these things do come to fruition, expect to see shifts in global trade patterns and sourcing.
Natural disasters will continue to become more frequent and more severe, as exhibited by the wildfires in Los Angeles and the winter storms throughout the southern states in the U.S. As a result, expect companies to invest more heavily in sustainability to mitigate climate change.
The peace treaty announced on Wednesday between Isael and Hamas in the Middle East could support increased freight volumes returning to the Suez Canal as political crisis in the area are resolved.
The French transportation visibility provider Shippeo today said it has raised $30 million in financial backing, saying the money will support its accelerated expansion across North America and APAC, while driving enhancements to its “Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platform” product.
The funding round was led by Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth fund, with participation from existing investors: Battery Ventures, Partech, NGP Capital, Bpifrance Digital Venture, LFX Venture Partners, Shift4Good and Yamaha Motor Ventures. With this round, Shippeo’s total funding exceeds $140 million.
Shippeo says it offers real-time shipment tracking across all transport modes, helping companies create sustainable, resilient supply chains. Its platform enables users to reduce logistics-related carbon emissions by making informed trade-offs between modes and carriers based on carbon footprint data.
"Global supply chains are facing unprecedented complexity, and real-time transport visibility is essential for building resilience” Prashant Bothra, Principal at Woven Capital, who is joining the Shippeo board, said in a release. “Shippeo’s platform empowers businesses to proactively address disruptions by transforming fragmented operations into streamlined, data-driven processes across all transport modes, offering precise tracking and predictive ETAs at scale—capabilities that would be resource-intensive to develop in-house. We are excited to support Shippeo’s journey to accelerate digitization while enhancing cost efficiency, planning accuracy, and customer experience across the supply chain.”
Donald Trump has been clear that he plans to hit the ground running after his inauguration on January 20, launching ambitious plans that could have significant repercussions for global supply chains.
As Mark Baxa, CSCMP president and CEO, says in the executive forward to the white paper, the incoming Trump Administration and a majority Republican congress are “poised to reshape trade policies, regulatory frameworks, and the very fabric of how we approach global commerce.”
The paper is written by import/export expert Thomas Cook, managing director for Blue Tiger International, a U.S.-based supply chain management consulting company that focuses on international trade. Cook is the former CEO of American River International in New York and Apex Global Logistics Supply Chain Operation in Los Angeles and has written 19 books on global trade.
In the paper, Cook, of course, takes a close look at tariff implications and new trade deals, emphasizing that Trump will seek revisions that will favor U.S. businesses and encourage manufacturing to return to the U.S. The paper, however, also looks beyond global trade to addresses topics such as Trump’s tougher stance on immigration and the possibility of mass deportations, greater support of Israel in the Middle East, proposals for increased energy production and mining, and intent to end the war in the Ukraine.
In general, Cook believes that many of the administration’s new policies will be beneficial to the overall economy. He does warn, however, that some policies will be disruptive and add risk and cost to global supply chains.
In light of those risks and possible disruptions, Cook’s paper offers 14 recommendations. Some of which include:
Create a team responsible for studying the changes Trump will introduce when he takes office;
Attend trade shows and make connections with vendors, suppliers, and service providers who can help you navigate those changes;
Consider becoming C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) certified to help mitigate potential import/export issues;
Adopt a risk management mindset and shift from focusing on lowest cost to best value for your spend;
Increase collaboration with internal and external partners;
Expect warehousing costs to rise in the short term as companies look to bring in foreign-made goods ahead of tariffs;
Expect greater scrutiny from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol of origin statements for imports in recognition of attempts by some Chinese manufacturers to evade U.S. import policies;
Reduce dependency on China for sourcing; and
Consider manufacturing and/or sourcing in the United States.
Cook advises readers to expect a loosening up of regulations and a reduction in government under Trump. He warns that while some world leaders will look to work with Trump, others will take more of a defiant stance. As a result, companies should expect to see retaliatory tariffs and duties on exports.
Cook concludes by offering advice to the incoming administration, including being sensitive to the effect retaliatory tariffs can have on American exports, working on federal debt reduction, and considering promoting free trade zones. He also proposes an ambitious water works program through the Army Corps of Engineers.
ReposiTrak, a global food traceability network operator, will partner with Upshop, a provider of store operations technology for food retailers, to create an end-to-end grocery traceability solution that reaches from the supply chain to the retail store, the firms said today.
The partnership creates a data connection between suppliers and the retail store. It works by integrating Salt Lake City-based ReposiTrak’s network of thousands of suppliers and their traceability shipment data with Austin, Texas-based Upshop’s network of more than 450 retailers and their retail stores.
That accomplishment is important because it will allow food sector trading partners to meet the U.S. FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204d (FSMA 204) requirements that they must create and store complete traceability records for certain foods.
And according to ReposiTrak and Upshop, the traceability solution may also unlock potential business benefits. It could do that by creating margin and growth opportunities in stores by connecting supply chain data with store data, thus allowing users to optimize inventory, labor, and customer experience management automation.
"Traceability requires data from the supply chain and – importantly – confirmation at the retail store that the proper and accurate lot code data from each shipment has been captured when the product is received. The missing piece for us has been the supply chain data. ReposiTrak is the leader in capturing and managing supply chain data, starting at the suppliers. Together, we can deliver a single, comprehensive traceability solution," Mark Hawthorne, chief innovation and strategy officer at Upshop, said in a release.
"Once the data is flowing the benefits are compounding. Traceability data can be used to improve food safety, reduce invoice discrepancies, and identify ways to reduce waste and improve efficiencies throughout the store,” Hawthorne said.
Under FSMA 204, retailers are required by law to track Key Data Elements (KDEs) to the store-level for every shipment containing high-risk food items from the Food Traceability List (FTL). ReposiTrak and Upshop say that major industry retailers have made public commitments to traceability, announcing programs that require more traceability data for all food product on a faster timeline. The efforts of those retailers have activated the industry, motivating others to institute traceability programs now, ahead of the FDA’s enforcement deadline of January 20, 2026.